This week Thursday, I will be at Baker Book House signing my book, In The Image of Man. This supernatural thriller is book one of the Unseen Dominion series. I will also share my writing journey and explain why God has led me to donate all of my proceeds from the book to compassion-based ministry Living Water International.

Where: Baker Book House2768 East Paris Ave SE,Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546When: Thursday, October 16, @ 7pmInfo: www.facebook.com/events/654188021346084/﻿The eyes are the window to the soul… …but what if the eyes are empty?﻿When Officer Chris Davis, of Arrow Springs, Missouri, rescues a young woman from a mysterious attacker, he steps into the center of a spiritual showdown. Following his heart, and a trace of circumstantial evidence, he embarks on a collision course with a government research facility and an unseen foe.---- One year before Dolly the Sheep, three humans were cloned in a small town in Missouri. Twenty-five years later, THEY'RE READY!ABOUT THE AUTHORRobert lives in Holland, Michigan with his wife and five children. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and has taken several Master level classes in religion, including theology. God has blessed him with the spiritual gift of teaching and a creative personality type. For over twenty years, he has brought this creativity to his professional career as a manager of software developers, and a creator of leading-edge technologies for a global high-tech electronics company in the automotive and aerospace industries. For nearly five years, he wove creativity and a passion for teaching together as a pastor of worship, adult discipleship, and outreach. In this role, he designed and scripted several outreach events and dramas, created unique video presentations, developed discipleship curriculum, and led corporate musical worship. Since then, he has developed his public speaking skills and has had the privilege to preach at multiple churches.Several years ago, he turned his creativity and writing toward the pursuit of teaching through story. He has refined his fiction writing craft through conference sessions, critique group involvement, online and book study, writing, and plenty of rewriting.Robert is the founder of Hearts of Compassion Publishing (www.heartspublishing.com), a company devoted to providing readers with quality stories and the comfort of knowing that the proceeds from those stories go to support compassion-based ministries.

It's interesting watching the focus of an entire country shift every year to the paranormal for one month concluding with Halloween. You don't have to spend long looking at the TV shows and movies in the month of October to realize something has changed. Whether it is the fabled Headless Horseman, an evil doll, blood-sucking deals for power, or treating interaction with the spirits as child's play, people are drawn to the scary and downright wicked.

Should this fascination with the paranormal surprise us? Probably not. Scripturally speaking we are spiritual beings with physical bodies, not the other way around. On the other hand, the Bible speaks quite strongly against witchcraft, sorcery, charms, fortune-telling, consulting the spirits or the dead, and enchantments. See Deuteronomy 18:10-11. And this isn't just an Old Testament teaching, in Galatians 5, sorcery is listed along with things like sexual immorality, dissension, outbursts of anger, drunkenness, etc. which are the contrary to the fruit brought about by the Spirit of God.

Personally, I think we need to think more often about the world around us which is unseen. This is why my book series is called Unseen Dominion. We often like to treat the paranormal as either non-existent or something to be toyed with. This couldn't be further from the truth. Remember according to Ephesians 6:We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.It is a battle and the easiest foe to defeat is the one that sticks their head in the sand and pretends there is no battle.

I an not one to argue that we should completely isolate ourselves from the world. We cannot avoid the battle, God says we are in it. I just want us to be aware of what we are truly dealing with. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, even the ancient gods of mythology, don't really exist. But, are they harmless stories with which to obsess? Scripture is pretty clear about the existence of angels and demons, spiritual entities. We need to be careful that we are not deceived either to believe that there is no battle or that the enemies are harmless.

Ephesians 6 tells us what armor is required for the battle. That is a topic for another day. But, as I've attempted to convey in my book, In The Image of Man, some of the necessary tools are Faith, Prayer, and the Word of God.

I've been a husband for 28 years and am the father of five children, three boys and two girls, ages 24 and under.

My vocational years have been an eclectic mix of software developer, electrical and manufacturing engineer, manager, and even five years as a worship pastor. So, I guess it only stands to reason that my aspirations as an author are equally unique. As an author it is my desire to challenge one's mind with what ifs, one's heart with if only, and one's sense of justice with if not me.